Small wind turbines are commonly single-turbine installations owned by individual homeowners or farmers for on-site electricity consumption, and are becoming an attractive alternative for off-grid electrification and water pumping, both as stand-alone applications and in combination with other energy technologies such as photovoltaic, small hydro or diesel engines. The cost of energy alone is not the only criterion to consider, other aspects like system performance, suitability for a given wind regime, reliability under normal and extreme wind conditions, efficiency in energy storage and exploitation, and overall system life are often equally important. This research deals with the development of small-scale wind energy systems for increasing the productivity of wind power and achieving the better exploitation of generated energy. The proposed wind turbine controller is based on the variable-speed variable-pitch power regulation strategy, using the combination of chattering torque control and PI pitch control. The hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and on-site experimental testing in rural area are presented. Compressed air energy storage (CAES) strategy for the energy exploitation is also discussed.